Thursday, September 22, 2016

By Jeff SimpsonIf you have not had a conversation about Colin Kaepernick, Black Lives Matter, and the growing number of African Americans suffering at the hands of police all over the country then you have been living under a rock. It is everywhere from the news to the sports page, the schools to the playgrounds. It is on the talk shows, the political shows and the sports shows. For example, Marshawn Lynch recently made an appearance on the Conan O'Brien show.

"I think you have players that are trying to take a stand and trying to be aware of social issues and try to make a stand and increase peoples' awareness and put a spotlight on it, and they're being ignored. Whether they're taking a knee or whether they're locking arms, they're trying to bring people together and unite them for a cause. I think the last couple days, a couple more guys have gotten shot and killed in the middle of the street. More videos have come out of guys getting killed, and I think people are still missing the point. The reason these guys are kneeling, the reason we're locking arms is to bring people together, to make people aware that this is not right. It's not right for people to get killed in the street."

According to the most recent census data, there are nearly 160 million more white people in America than there are black people. White people make up roughly 62 percent of the U.S. population but only about 49 percent of those who are killed by police officers. African Americans, however, account for 24 percent of those fatally shot and killed by the police despite being just 13 percent of the U.S. population. As The Post noted in a new analysis published last week, that means black Americans are 2.5 times as likely as white Americans to be shot and killed by police officers.U.S. police officers have shot and killed the exact same number of unarmed white people as they have unarmed black people: 50 each. But because the white population is approximately five times as great as the black population, that means unarmed black Americans were five times as likely as unarmed white Americans to be shot and killed by a police officer.

Now some highlights! Mr. Hayes started here:

Racism towards black people isn't getting "worse", it's getting filmed and shared for all to see what actually goes on. #BlackLivesMatter

While many in White America get upset when athletes speak up, we hear the standard line of "shut up and play". I think it is time that we start giving credit where it is due and instead of saying "shut up and play" we should be saying - "Stop playing for a minute and let us know your thoughts on _____"!